Apple sold 13.3 million iPads in the June quarter, which was a
9.9% drop on a year-over-year basis. On trailing twelve month
basis, iPad sales are basically flat.

As the iPad business has stalled, sentiment around the iPad has
become negative. Almost comically so.

For instance, Brian Fitzgerald, a deputy editor of The Wall
Street Journal's tech section said on
Twitter, "This launch is about the iPad's
viability."

Ahead of the iPad event,
Farhad Manjoo at The New York Times wrote,
"What’s the point of an
iPad? Who needs a tablet in this era of big phones and
ultraportable laptops? ... Those are the tough
questions Apple has to answer."

Apple didn't answer those
questions today. Not in any satisfactory way.
And so, if people
were negative going into the event, we expect that will only
increase.

Business Insider

Apple
announced the iPad Air 2, which is a new version of the iPad
Air, which came out last year. It's 18% thinner. It has a new
chip, which makes it faster. It now comes in gold.

It also announced the iPad Mini
3, but it didn't spend any time talking about the iPad Mini 3.
All the stage time was spent talking about the iPad Air 2. The
iPad Mini 3 looks like it barely got any upgrades, which is weird
because Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the iPad Mini has 100%
customer satisfaction.

The iPad Mini is a popular
product, but with Apple releasing the iPhone 6 Plus, maybe it
thinks the iPad Mini is not going to be as popular in the next
twelve months. The 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch screen. The Mini has a
7.9-inch screen. If you have one, you
don't really need the other.

Apple also kept all the older
models of the iPad in rotation, giving it a pretty diverse line.
The original, non-retina iPad Mini starts at $249, and the iPad
Air Mini 2 starts at $499. So, Apple has a lot of price points
for a lot of people.

Apple/Screenshot

Perhaps this diverse line of
prices will drive sales. The iPad Air is great device at $399.
And the iPad Mini 2 at $299 is also a great device.

But coming into the event, the
concern wasn't about the quality of the product. It wasn't even
about the price of the iPad. The concern is about whether or not
people even need iPads. And why exactly the iPad had
stalled.

Apple didn't answer either of
those questions. It obliquely responded to people concerned about
the fact that the iPad is flat by saying the iPad had sold more
units than any other Apple product in its first four years. It
also flashed a chart showing iPad sales beating other PC
makers.

Business Insider

The idea is that the iPad
business is better than people think. But that's not terribly
convincing. It doesn't address the lack of growth for the
iPad.

The sales decline is startling
since this was heralded as the next major computing platform. It
was believed to be the next major business for Apple after the
iPhone. Instead, it's in decline after just four years on the
market.

BII

As for why people need iPads,
Apple's on-stage demonstrations were weirdly off-key. Apple's SVP
of Marketing Phil Schiller decided to show people how great the
iPad Air 2 is as a camera. Apple also demonstrated photo and
video editing apps.

The iPad Air 2 looks like it's
a great camera, but it's not better than the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6
Plus, which are easier to carry. The iPad Air 2 looks better for
editing photos, but that's not really a killer app to breath life
back into the iPad line.

So, where does this leave the
iPad? Pretty much where we started. People that were worried
about the product have no reason to be less worried about
it.